Blue Devil number 10, Blake Forslund, celebrates his first of two goals in the first period of the game.
Photo courtesy of Melissa Rechin
SEAN MCGRATH
Assistant Sports Editor
The fifth-place Fredonia Blue Devils wrapped up the home part of their schedule by sweeping the Morrisville Mustangs twice in one weekend.
But the big story of this past weekend was the team ditching the white home jerseys for a very different color.
“Real men wear pink” is a quote that has been tossed around. The Blue Devils proved it, sporting pink sweaters, socks, laces and even stick tape with a different name than what is normally worn. That’s right, Saturday night was Pink The Rink.
Fredonia swept the Mustangs, (5-13- 2 Overall, 2-9-1 SUNYAC), out of Steele Hall. Freshman Jeff Flagler shutting them out on Friday night 2-0 with 25 saves, and backstopping the Devils with 35 saves on 37 shots to a 5-2 victory Saturday night.
On Friday, it was the freshman who were scoring: freshman Frankie Hart scored, freshman Erik Moberg scored his first collegiate goal, along with 25 saves from Flagler to earn his second shutout as the Devils blanked the Mustangs, 2-0.
“First of all, when you come out for warmups at 6:22 and it’s a standing-room- only crowd — that only happens once a year,” Meredith said.
“Before warmups guys are used to hanging out in the stands and taping sticks and being on the ice throwing pucks around in their sneakers. But with this game the place is full at quarter to six,” he continued.
Even the officials wore special uniforms, replacing white stripes with pink ones, which were then donated and auctioned off to four lucky winners.
Different names adorned jerseys: family, friends and notable others, all of which are battling or have battled cancer.
Losing wasn’t in the cards for the Pink Devils, turning up the heat in the third period, scoring four unanswered goals en route to a 5-2 victory in a pinked out Steele Arena, filled with 1,014 cheering fans.
Stephen Castriota and Blake Forslund each notched two goals, Alex Perkins added the fifth goal and Flagler made 35 saves in the charity game.
“We got a great start in the third period,” Meredith said about the explosive third period that lifted the team. “I think when we got that second one [of the period] so quick in that period that Morrisville struggled to recover from that.”
The first period had both teams scoring one goal each.
Morrisville struck first. Daniel Morello scored with four seconds left in a boarding penalty to Zach White.
Fredonia then returned the scoring when Forslund scored his first of two goals, deflecting a shot from Ryan Wilkinson past Morrisville goalie Jakob Rasmussen with 2:14 left in the first. Castriota scored his first point of the night, adding an assist on Forslund’s goal.
At the end of one, Fredonia owned an edge in shots, 16 – 6.
Morrisville started the second period very quickly.
With two in the penalty box, Morrisville tallied 41 seconds into the period when John Doyle pushed the puck past Flagler on the power play.
It was the only goal of the period.
Fredonia led in shots 31-25 through both periods.
Coming into the third, Fredonia knew that the game at hand was much more than just two extra points.
“We knew it was going to be a huge atmosphere with tons of people,” Flagler said. “We just didn’t want to disappoint.”
Fredonia sang a completely different tune to start the third period and, almost immediately, it was captain Perkins who started Fredonia off.
After the Mustangs won the opening faceoff, Perkins caught a high pass, to which he dropped it to his stick, carried around two defenders and put a shot up that ultimately entered the net.
It was all uphill after that.
After a battle behind the Morrisville net, Castriota broke the 2-2 tie after he picked up the puck and delivered a wrap- around backhanded shot to score the first of his two goals in the third period. Matt Owczarczak and Travis Fernley were given the assists on the goal.
Castriota then scored his ninth of the season just about four minutes later, wristing a shot through the screen. Owczarczak and Hunter Long were given the assists on Castriota’s second goal.
Just as fans sat down after celebrating, Forslund made them stand right back up. Scoring 10 seconds after Castriota, he rocketed a hard shot right into the net to nail the door on the coffin to put this game out of reach.
“We just needed to get back to the basics,” Castriota said of the team’s resilience and hard work in the third. “We needed to get back to playing five-on-five hockey, and just get pucks to the net and that’s what we did.”
At the buzzer, Fredonia was electrified; fans were cheering loud, the team and coaching staff was lit up. They knew that they were a part of something bigger than even they realized.
Each jersey was purchased by various families or businesses, to which were then given to the recipients right off of the backs of the players at the ceremony following the game. All proceeds were donated to the American Cancer Society. Through the five years the event has been going on, over $50,000 has been raised, with the jerseys alone totaling over $8,000.
Legendary head coach Herb Brooks once said, “The name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back.” But Meredith agrees that tonight, “the ones on the back were the most important ones.”